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“Not interrupting anything?” I called through the door, a bit suspiciously. The ex–Chief Sergeant Professor didn’t seem like that kind of man, but then, I’d been wrong in my judgment before.

“Enter,” was his reply.

I turned the knob and pushed my way in to find him just sitting still and quiet behind his desk, hands folded in front of him, staring off into the air. There wasn’t anyone else in the room, at least, and I found I was a little relieved that there wasn’t anything fishy going on behind his closed door. Try as I might, I just couldn’t see Adamo doing that with one of the other boys or girls. It made me mad as anything to picture it.

He didn’t even seem to like teaching them. Why would he bother with them outside of class on top of that?

“Well?” he asked, when I didn’t say anything. “Take a seat. I’m figuring you’re worried about the take-home?”

“Not worried at all,” I said, since I’d taken a glance at the copy Toverre’d gone and snatched the minute the test had become available. “There’s no answer to that first question. You’re better off skipping it altogether and spending your time on them that can be solved.”

Adamo went silent for a second, in a way that made me near certain I’d gone and stepped in it.

“That’s exactly right,” he said at last, not looking altogether pleased that he had to admit it. “It’s not that there’s no point to it, mind, but it’s the principle behind the question, rather than the question itself that’s so important. It’s a hard strategy for some to take to—sacrificing a lost cause so you can turn your attention toward the stuff worth salvaging. You’re the first person to figure it out if I’m not mistaken. Which I’m usually not.”

Somewhere along the way his face had shifted from looking sour to downright approving. I couldn’t say I minded the change one bit.

“Well, that’s something new for me, anyway,” I said. “Normally come exam time, I already know I’m not doing well on them.”

“Why not?” Adamo asked, as I sat down. The leather chair on the other side of his desk gave out a long, guttural creak when I lowered myself into it; it was the sort of thing Toverre would have been humiliated by, but Adamo didn’t seem to notice it. That was a relief. “You’re a smart girl.”

“Just don’t have a head for memorizing things,” I said, feeling warm and more than my fair share of proud that he’d called me smart. Sneaking a glance at that test was the best decision I’d made yet. “And I never write down what I’m supposed to.”

Adamo snorted, the faintest twitch of a smile hiding in the corner of his mouth. “That so,” he said. “Well, me neither, when I went through schooling.”

“Then I guess there’s hope for me,” I replied. I toyed with a piece of leather that was peeling off the arm of the chair, revealing cream-white stuffing beneath. “Not that I think I’d be riding dragons anytime soon, though maybe something similar.”

“Guess we’re all hoping there won’t be further need for that,” Adamo said.

“Guess so,” I agreed. “Though it seems kinda disappointing, doesn’t it? All that work on ’em, and then—poof!—nothing.”

“It was more of a crash than a poof,” Adamo said. “But I take your meaning.”

“Not that I’m one of those lunatics who thinks we should be back at war with somebody, not caring who it is,” I added quickly, in case he took the wrong meaning. There was one of those in our class. It seemed to me like he’d only taken it so he could try to talk Adamo around to his way of thinking, which was that the entire Ke-Han Empire needed to be wiped off the map. That type of plan didn’t have a lot to do with thinking at all, in my opinion, just some kind of dark spite. As I saw it, he wasn’t any better than those in the room who acted like the Ke-Han hadn’t done any wrong, and we should just leave them alone to build up their forces again and try us a second time.

But those kinds of talks gave me headaches, mostly since nobody seemed to believe they could be of two minds about a thing—didn’t have enough to go around to be of one mind